Hoshizaki chooses Microsoft Azure Sphere to power the data collection mechanism of IoT commercial refrigerators and other equipment

* In Wi-Fi environments with internet-capable devices and where no relay is required, Hoshizaki installs a free Wi-Fi module to each piece of equipment under the service and waives the first month's service fee.

Supercharging supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurant chains, mass cooking facilities, and distribution centers with Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi

Hoshizaki has been practicing the action principle “Challenge to the Extremity” toward creating products under the corporate motto “A company cannot grow without original products”, and has become a general food service equipment manufacturer. With one of the largest shares of the Japanese market for fully automated ice machines, commercial refrigerators, dishwashers, and beer dispensers, the company is actively pursuing further international expansion. In addition to manufacturing and selling equipment, Hoshizaki also prudently responds to diversification in food trends. Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi launched in January 2024 as the company enhanced and accelerated its services.

“Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi is a new SaaS in which we connect Wi-Fi modules to commercial refrigerators and other equipment to manage operation and temperature data in the cloud. It creates IoT-enabled devices with zero initial cost so customers can check, manage, and record equipment operating status and temperatures in real time and at their convenience via the internet,” says Naoki Akahane, General Manager of the Hoshizaki Sales & Marketing Department. “We’re targeting major products, including Hoshizaki commercial refrigerators already in the field, and we’re planning to expand device compatibility and add support for competing products with temperature controls.”

“One of the reasons we created this service was to reduce paperwork for food-related businesses. In addition to existing legal obligations to check fluorocarbons required by the Act on Rational Use and Proper Management of Fluorocarbons, the revised Food Sanitation Act fully effective from June 2021 requires businesses to maintain records on hygiene management in accordance with HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point),” says Toyoaki Kojima, Manager of the Hoshizaki Sales & Marketing Department.

“This is often done manually, which creates large workloads,” explains Kojima. “Hoshizaki is implementing DX initiatives to drive new business by adding customer value to our existing maintenance services.”

This is not the first time Hoshizaki has worked on IoT in its products. In December 2021, the company announced the Hoshizaki Smart Band Cloud, an IoT-based temperature management system which made the corporation one of the first to comply with the revised Food Sanitation Act.

“Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi and Smart Band Cloud are completely different,” says Makoto Sasaki, who leads the planning and development of these technologies as Executive Officer of the Hoshizaki Research and Development Center. “Smart Band Cloud targets businesses preparing food in bulk and manages temperatures over the entire cooking process, from ingredient arrival to preparation. Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi is for a wider range of businesses including supermarkets, convenience stores, and restaurant chains to manage data on equipment operations as well as temperatures. This is why we started planning Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi in January 2021 while developing and distributing Smart Band Cloud.”

Azure Sphere for low-cost module manufacturing and guaranteed security

“Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi covers many businesses from supermarkets and convenience stores to restaurant chains. To achieve this broad coverage, our focus was on the price of the Wi-Fi modules to be installed in equipment,” says Sasaki. Products such as Hoshizaki commercial refrigerators have featured micro controllers, which enable users to check temperature and operating status on the equipment front panel, for some time. Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi needed a mechanism to extract data from the microcomputer and send data to the cloud via Wi-Fi, but the cost had to be as low as possible for the service to gain traction.

“At the end of 2021, we consulted with several board vendors about the cost. We decided to work with NSW because it offered us a good price and had an exemplary track record in IoT,” says Makoto Yamasaki, General Manager of the Hoshizaki Development Department.

To deliver a low-cost Wi-Fi module, NSW adopted Azure Sphere, Microsoft’s platform for IoT devices. In addition to Wi-Fi functionality, the module features a Micro Controller Unit (MCU) chip that serves as the core of edge devices, a secure Linux-based OS, and data collection services powered by Azure.

According to Daisuke Takemura, NSW Chief Digital Officer and Member of the Board, “Due to the tight budget, we firstly decided to exclude general-purpose gateways, which are often used with IoT devices. These gateways combine multiple dedicated chips and cost tens of thousands of yen per unit. We examined Azure Sphere, which has been widely available since February 2020. The MCU chip in Azure Sphere includes everything you need for the IoT edge, eliminating the multiple dedicated chips. With Azure Sphere, we knew we could manufacture a Wi-Fi module at a low cost.”

However, cost was not the only decisive factor in choosing Azure Sphere: the Microsoft solution guaranteed security, which was another essential requirement.

“Deployment in stores means the edge device will be used in the same way as a consumer device,” explains Takemura. “When there are no experts on the user side, the system must guarantee security. Many IoT devices are left vulnerable due to the challenge of updating OS and software, but Azure Sphere has a downstream OTA (over-the-air) feature that ensures 10 years of security updates. This gave us the peace of mind to deploy our solution in stores.”

Ensuring scalability with a massive PoC involving 1,700 products in 600 locations

In September 2022, Hoshizaki launched a PoC, installing its Wi-Fi modules in commercial refrigerators and other equipment. The remarkable aspect of this PoC was its massive scale. Using modules installed in 1,700 products in 600 locations, the company checked the types of wireless environments it needed to accurately send and receive data; the kinds of data that customers, sales companies, and Hoshizaki service personnel required; and the applications necessary for successful implementation.

“Hoshizaki’s requirements needed a PoC of immense scale, so from the outset, we aimed for a system configuration tailored to service scalability. The system’s data visualization feature leverages our Toami IoT platform on Azure, while using serverless functions to ensure superior scalability in other aspects,” says Shigeki Endou, Deputy General Manager of the NSW Cloud Services Division. 

“There were many unexpected occurrences during the PoC, but NSW responded immediately and delivered a stable system of massive scale,” says Sasaki, who happily notes that the modules were also cheaper than expected.

Ippei Miyake, Manager of the NSW First Sales Department, reacts to this praise, saying, “Our swift response to issues was greatly aided by the support available from Microsoft after adopting Azure Sphere. We can now access a wealth of information from overseas case studies through Microsoft. If we had handled the project alone, we might not have been able to respond so quickly.”

Yamasaki details the specific benefits of Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi below.

“Commercial refrigerators are designed to keep cooling when an error occurs, so customers often don’t notice errors. However, Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi emails customers of detected errors. Because we receive this data too, we can respond to failures quickly and propose improvements for gasket deterioration and other hidden failures based on customer requirements. We can also identify defective parts, so we can reduce service visits by arranging the necessary replacement parts in advance.”

According to Kojima, the ability to provide data required by restaurant chains is also a significant merit.

“For proper store management, restaurant chain head offices need data such as whether store employees operate equipment properly and whether cooling efficiency matches power consumption. With Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi, users can visualize this data and immediately identify any problems. Some businesses halved their electricity bill by changing the temperature setting from minus 23 degrees Celsius to minus 20 degrees, which they obviously appreciated immensely.”

According to Akahane, customers also love that Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi automates the record keeping required under various laws. Hoshizaki will gradually expand its compatible product range and eventually make the modules standard equipment in its goods.

“As the number of compatible products grows and we collect more data, we’ll be able to use that data for product design,” says Sasaki. “We’re looking at using the collected data with AI soon.

“We hold the largest share of the Japanese market for ice makers and commercial refrigerators, so equipping these machines with Hoshizaki Connect Wi-Fi as standard will provide a huge amount of data. No other commercial food equipment manufacturers operate on the same scale. We want to leverage these characteristics to create unprecedented services.”